Japan and South Korea are adding to their list of grievances with each other as Japan’s government prepares to debate South Korea’s partial ban on Japanese marine products.

The debate is coming next week, at a World Trade Organization meeting in Switzerland, reports theJapan Real Time.

South Korea has banned Japanese marine products due to fears of radiation. Japanese government officials will present their case to the Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures in Geneva, an official from the country’s fisheries agency told JRT.“Japan will present our case that there is no scientific basis for the ban,” said the official. “We hope that by explaining our stance and having a discussion, South Korea will choose to repeal the ban of its own accord.”

South Korea has had a ban on all fishery imports from eight prefectures in northern Japan since last month due to concerns about a leak of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, also tightened safety inspections on imported fishery products by lowering the maximum permissible level of radiation to 100 Becquerels per kilogram from 370.

Yet the nation-wide ban South Korea is now issuing is tougher than Seoul’s previous import restriction on 50 kinds of fishery products from the eight prefectures, which include Fukushima, Gunma, Miyagi, Iwate, Tochigi, Chiba and Aomori in Japan.

Those areas exported 5,000 metric tons of fishery products to South Korea last year, accounting for 22% of the total 23,000-ton Japanese fishery shipment, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Seoul.

After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011, China and Taiwan were ahead of South Korea in banning the imports of seafood, dairy and vegetable products from Japan.

Seoul has complained that Tokyo has been neither accurate nor timely in providing information on radiation leaks.

Source: Under Current News